In full Blume

Judy Blume Forever is an honest documentary of a fearless author

- REYA MEHROTRA

Author Judy Blume’s daughter, Randy, once asked her for a story about “two nice kids who have sex without either of them having to die”. Until then, in all the novels Randy had read about sex outside marriage, the girl was always punished for it— with an unplanned pregnancy, a painful abortion or sometimes even death. Blume set out to destroy the norm with her young adult book, Forever, about a chance encounter between two high-school kids, their whirlwind romance and then, a summer apart as a test of their love. The book became hugely controversial for its explicit sexual content when it hit the stands in 1975.

But by then, Blume had become controversy’s poster child. Back in the 1970s, two American women blew the lid off female sexuality— Nancy Friday, who wrote for adults, and Blume, who wrote for young adults and teens. They addressed topics such as women’s intimate fantasies, menstruation and birth control. Termed ‘pornographic’ and ‘inappropriate’ then, the books were well ahead of their time.

It was this blend of honesty and courage which Blume, now 85, was famous for, that inspired American filmmakers Davina Pardo and Leah Wolchok to make a documentary on her—Judy Blume Forever—which released on Amazon Prime Video on April 21 to much critical acclaim. “I was on a road trip with my family and decided to play an audiobook,” Pardo told THE WEEK in an exclusive interaction. “It turned out to be Blume’s Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, narrated by the author herself. It hit me in a very visceral way and I wanted to know everything about Blume, who had such a huge cultural impact.”